Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of Linux <a href="http://distrowatch.com/mint">Mint</a> 201204 &quot;Debian&quot; edition: &quot;The team is proud to announce the release of LMDE 201204. This release features three of the best Linux desktops available at the moment: The traditional and functional MATE 1.2 desktop, the innovative and beautiful Cinnamon 1.4 and the lightweight and rock-solid Xfce 4.8. Both the MATE/Cinnamon and Xfce editions use the MDM display manager.

Linus Torvalds has <a href="http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1269210" rel="external" target="_blank">released</a> Linux&nbsp;3.3, which should ultimately remove some of the problems that occasionally caused system interruptions when writing to slow storage devices. Dozens of new and revised drivers improve the kernel&#39;s hardware support so there is progress in the open source drivers for AMD, Intel and NVIDIA graphics.

An enhanced Ext4 filesystem, an optimised TCP stack and support for thin provisioning in the Device Mapper are some of the most important new features of the freshly released <a href="http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1235375" rel="external" target="_blank">Linux 3.2</a>. The latest kernel version also brings with it a host of new and improved drivers which, among other things, address graphics hardware from Intel and NVIDIA and wireless devices from Atheros and Broadcom.

The <a href="http://linuxmint.com/" rel="external">Linux Mint</a> developers, led by founder Clement Lefebvre, have forked the shell of GNOME&nbsp;3. The new shell fork, named Cinnamon, is being used as a platform to continue their development of a more GNOME&nbsp;2-like environment for GNOME&nbsp;3 users.